Felix Adler (1851–1933) was a German-born American ethical philosopher and educator. He was the founder of the Ethical Movement, a liberal religious movement in the United States and Europe. The motto of the society was “Deed not creed.”
Born in Alzey, Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, Adler immigrated to New York City at the age of six. He graduated from Columbia University and after earning a PhD at Heidelberg, he briefly became a professor of Hebrew and Oriental literature at Cornell. He founded the Society for Ethical Culture 1876, a nonsectarian organization devoted to achieving high moral potential through practical deeds as well as religious teachings. The Ethical Movement that he spearheaded to asserted the importance of the moral factor in all life’s relations, without regard to considerations of a supreme being.
Adler also established the Manhattan Trade School for Girls and the Workingmen’s School, which gave moral instruction and manual training. He was active in reform movements affecting tenement housing and the abolition of child labor and taught political and social ethics at Columbia 1902–33. His writings include Creed and Deed (1877,) The Moral Instruction of Children (1892,) The Religion of Duty (1905,) An Ethical Philosophy of Life (1918,) and The Reconstruction of the Spiritual Ideal (1918.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Felix Adler
An optimist is a person who sees only the lights in the picture, whereas a pessimist sees only the shadows. An idealist, however, is one who sees the light and the shadows, but in addition sees something else: the possibility of changing the picture, of making the lights prevail over the shadows.
—Felix Adler
Topics: Optimism, Ideals
Ethical religion can be real only to those who are engaged in ceaseless efforts at moral improvement. By moving upward we acquire faith in an upward movement, without limit.
—Felix Adler
Topics: Ethics
To care for anyone else enough to make their problems one’s own, is ever the beginning of one’s real ethical development.
—Felix Adler
Topics: Ethics
The family is the school of duties. But it has this distinguishing excellency, that among those who are linked together by the strong ties of affection duty is founded on love.
—Felix Adler
Topics: Family
Act so as to elicit the best in others and thereby in thyself.
—Felix Adler
Topics: Optimism, Positive Attitudes
Love of country is like love of woman—he loves her best who seeks to bestow on her the highest good.
—Felix Adler
Topics: Love, Patriotism
Love is the expansion of two natures in such fashion
that each include the other,
each is enriched by the other.
—Felix Adler
Topics: Love
The hero is the one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by. The saint is the man who walks through the dark paths of the world, himself a light.
—Felix Adler
Topics: Heroes, Light, Heroism, Heroes/Heroism
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